


Followed Into the Dark

by bouncingclowns



Series: Nat’s Ratched One Shots [7]
Category: Ratched (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, anyway I had a lot to say here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouncingclowns/pseuds/bouncingclowns
Summary: Written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr: Gwendolyn gets nightmares too.“I was very much in love once, with a girl who went off to war. She was a nurse. She didn’t make it back.”
Relationships: Gwendolyn Briggs/Mildred Ratched
Series: Nat’s Ratched One Shots [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965112
Comments: 15
Kudos: 65





	Followed Into the Dark

_“I was very much in love once, with a girl who went off to war. She was a nurse. She didn’t make it back.”_

Her name had been Joan. They met in college at a party, back when Joan was a mere nurse trainee, and Gwendolyn an impish, precocious law student. It had made Joan’s cheeks warm, sent a smile inching up her features. When Gwen looked at her, she saw the stars. A thousand supernovas bursting and firing just bellow her tanned skin. She was so unlike the redhead — she was slighter, more muscular, with her black hair and eyes. Her lips a deep pomegranate, her smile a faint grin. Gwendolyn felt so childlike next to her. So very gangly and bawdish. She stood taller, her smile a lopsided and slightly toothy thing, her green eyes like fern. Her hair was more saturated then, sprung with a type of youthful flounce. Nevertheless they became fast friends.

Friends.

A funny word, and stranger still in its honesty. Gwendolyn captured her attention, enrapt her in mischief Joan both feared and delighted in. Gwendolyn, on the other hand, only could be comfortable in stillness when Joan was near. They dissented often, spoke not of the frivolities expected of women, but of politics, and philosophy, and art. They spoke of science; the theory of life. A mutual friend once described them as old French men sitting in a café; Gwendolyn had always loved the analogy.

She had loved more than that.

They were reading. Just reading. Just sitting near one another in an empty library — studying nearby one another in their favorite nooke. Joan had laughed about a like in her book; Gwen thinks it was in _The Well of Loneliness_ (a distinctly unfunny tale). Joan’s laugh sounded like a forest. It lilted, wavered in the wind, collected with the moss. Her pulled her deep lips into a smirk and sent a dimple across her cheek.

She’s still not sure how it happened. How her hand found its way over hers. How her lips found the skin of her tanned cheek just adjacent her mouth. If she could go and take it all back, though, she would. It sent Joan startling backwards and practically hitting her head on a bookshelf. Gwendolyn recalls sharp words in hushed tones, a panicked query into why she had done that. And then Joan left. Vanished is a flurry of silent tears and false starts. Retreated not just from Gwendolyn, but deeper into herself.

She was gone within a week. Gwendolyn would later learn that she had requested to enlist as soon as possible. It wasn’t long after. A few months, maybe. Gwen remembers snow on the ground. Snow on the ground, and the crackle of a radio announcing those lost. Joan Caruso; nurse; killed in crossfire.

Sometimes, when she hears of Mildred’s time at that damned hospital, her mind wanders to Joan — if she had taken long to die, if it had hurt, if she had suffered. What death tasted like, what war smelled like. If she’d thought of Gwendolyn, as Gwendolyn had of her everyday since she’d kissed her. Sometimes, rarer still, she dreams. But not since Mildred had aparated into her life.

Mildred, a woman of similar demeanor to Joan, if not a bit rougher around the edges. Mildred, whose own past bore the weight of a bolder on her soul. Mildred, who bore a striking resemblance to the girl Joan had been in college, save for her pale complexion and maturity. Sometimes, in the cloak of night, Gwen even thinks they smell the same — earthy, natural, like rosemary or thyme. Still, she knew that Mildred was not truly Joan. She was more, because unlike Joan, Mildred loved Gwendolyn. If Joan had been the stars, Mildred was the moon.

Tonight, though, Mildred had come home from work with a thick wad of gauze wrapped across her hand. She had assured Gwen it was nothing, just an unruly patient. Still, she hissed when Gwendolyn pulled her arm towards her. She didn’t speak of it — not through dinner, not before bed. When the redhead would ask (which she found herself incapable of not pushing) she would simply smile, or kiss her, or change the subject. Gwendolyn could see the way Mildred’s shoulders tensed, the way her jaw set unevenly. She wasn’t asking Gwen to let it alone, not with any specific words. She was warning her. So she did, tabbing the page of her book and turning off the light on her bedside table. The space behind Gwendolyn’s eyes pulsed with a vaguely familiar discomfort, but she ignored it. Just a long day, that’s all.

It was a feeling that ticked Mildred’s suspicion. Something intrinsic she couldn’t quite name. Gwendolyn fell asleep too quickly. Her breath hiccuped with sleep before Mildred could even kiss her goodnight. There, turned on her side with her head practically cradled against her chest, Gwendolyn reminded Mildred of the bodies she had seen whilst island hopping. She was ridgid. Mildred thought she’d be able to snap off one of her limbs if she tried to move her. Still, her breathing remained — irregular as it was.

Mildred placed a hand on her shoulder, Gwendolyn’s muscles tensed. Mildred whispered her name, Gwendolyn’s choked on her own tongue. So Mildred sat up, placed a palm flush against the spot of her spine just between Gwen’s shoulder blades. The silk of her sleep shirt was dappled with sweat. The contact made Gwendolyn shiver.

“Come back to me, Gwen. I’m right here.” Mildred’s voice was tender, her airflow leveled, but panic shimmered on her eyes. Her heart thundered in her ears, her chest threatened tightness. She sucked in her breath, blinked hard, kept her lips pressed into a line. It wasn’t about her right now.

“ _Jooan—ngh._ ”

Mildred recognized it as a name ... sort of. The vowels stretched out to an almost moan like quality. It broke in Gwendolyn’s throat. It sent her eyes flickering open, her shoulders lurching forward. She gasped back into consciousness and pressed up into a seated position in Mildred’s arms. Mildred held steadfast against her reentry to reality. Her fingers began to dab at the droplets of sweat glinting on Gwendolyn’s skin.

“You’re okay.” She soothed it against Gwendolyn’s temple. “Everything is alright.”

Gwendolyn stuttered a breath. Her eyes darted across their room. There, with Mildred’s own bedside lamp still lit, it was coated in a warm glow. Beyond their balcony, she could hear the sea crashing against the dunes.

“Who is Joan?” Mildred’s voice pierced through the echo of machine guns. It held no animosity. It hummed like an engine revving. Gwendolyn felt the vibrations smooth the knots in her stomach.

Gwendolyn shook her head. It felt silly to dream of a war she never fought in, especially when Mildred had truly been there. But it wasn’t a dream of war, was it? Not really. It was of someone lost. A love severed, shattered into pieces, digging into her soul. It was a wound which was always ripped open again sooner or later. Mildred could understand that. Still, Gwen held her tongue.

As if by an act of mercy, Mildred did not push. She kissed the top of Gwendolyn’s head and pressed her into the crook of her neck. Once more, Gwendolyn found herself engulfed in her natural perfume of rosemary and thyme. She breathed it in, felt her heart thrum in her chest, felt tears well on her lash line. Gwendolyn swallowed the sensation and cleared her throat. But Mildred’s arms persisted around her. They held her upright. They kept her warm against the tremor subsiding through her.

They made her feel whole again; like home.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I’d love to hear what y’all think (-: I so enjoy getting to engage with you guys


End file.
